EPs are great aren't they? Sometimes, admittedly, they can feel like a cop-out stopgap, a disappointing substitute for an album, or a glorified single, but sometimes that's what they are. Some artists though, know how to spin the brevity of the format to their advantage, to revel in its comfortable restrictiveness. One such artist is Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Mangan, whose EP Roboteering is a between-albums release from after his Postcards and Daydreaming album from 2005 and in advance of a second full length release apparently on the way later this year.It consists of four emininently listenable and impressive songs and one song which is rather less immediately listenable but still impressive - in the right frame of mind. That latter song is unsurprisingly left til last on the record, and because of its mixed nature we'll get it out of the way first - it's called "A Tragic Turn of Events" and it's an acoustic, very lyrics-based, semi-spoken eight-and-a-half-minute poetic epic. It's a lyrical triumph, an elegiac epitaph, a striking and affecting song about death.Elsewhere, things are more straightforward, more accessible, but lovely. The first three tracks are the foundation for the EP, opener "Robots" being an especially enthralling slice of slightly ramshackle folk rock. Its conclusion, featuring group singing of the lines "robots need love too / they want to be loved by you" is wonderfully realised, a simple and plaintive statement about the universal need for love. Endings are a strong point for Mangan - he unveils another impressive one in the frenetic conclusion to "Sold", probably the EP's second best track. Completing the tracklisting are the twinkling, lo-fi duet "The Indie Queens Are Waiting" and the distorted guitars of "Till I Fall".This is an accomplished, well-rounded set of songs which form an often delicate, sometimes triumphant EP. It will certainly win Mangan new fans - on the basis of Roboteering, we ought to be excited about his forthcoming album. 83%Dan Mangan on MySpace